I was told to check out this movie by a friend who based on my description of another movie said that I would like this. And you know what, I really tried, I did. I just couldn't get past a few blaring inconsistencies of the story, and it mostly has to do with the presumption of the film makers.
Like "I'm Not There" which is a terrible movie, this movie is about a real life person, and instead of sticking to the real life story of the persons life they decide to get really artsy with it. Okay, fine by me, but here is where the presumption comes in, they don't know this person and think they can tell more than just their life, but also deep seeded things about them. How egotistical is that? Most of this movie isn't even about Mishima's life, its parts of the books and plays he wrote, that certainly tells me things about him, but doesn't really give me a workable picture of who he was, or why he did something very ground breaking in the ending of his life.
It was strange and exotic, but left me very unfulfilled. Walking away from this movie I only felt like I was given ripped out pages of a book, page 4, page 109, with giant gaps. Now I do agree that trying to sum up someone's life in 120 minutes is crazy, but they could of at least tried to have some sort of semblance of a narrative. It had to many false starts and dead ends.
It was shot decently, for the time I'm sure it looked incredible, and parts certainly were, but for the most part I was disappointed in the ill formed images. Parts looked cheap, and not nearly as detailed as Ive come to expect from Asian Cinema, but maybe that's because it was not made by Asians. That to me causes a problem, to make a movie like this you should leave it to the culture that spawned the story, otherwise it wont be accurate, it can still be good but it wont be true. I was mostly just annoyed with it. I don't regret watching it, but I don't feel I would have missed out if I hadn't watched it. 5/10 stars.
Director: Paul Schrader
Starring: Ken Ogata
No comments:
Post a Comment